


Some of Us Have to Grow Up

by Tabbyluna



Category: Skylanders (Video Games)
Genre: Childhood, Coffee Shops, Crack AU, Divorce, Family, Gen, Growing Up, Mentioned Economic Problems, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Sisters, Slice of Life, Train Rides, implied eating disorder, moving houses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:54:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26171557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabbyluna/pseuds/Tabbyluna
Summary: In the divorce, Mom took Whisper with her, and Dad took Stealth.
Kudos: 3





	1. Leaving the City

**Author's Note:**

> So this originally started because I was talking about non-romantic coffee shop AUs with someone in a discord chat. I ended up writing so much set-up, that the coffee shop only really shows up at the very end. All of it is written, but you need to stick around till chapter three to get the coffee shop.

In the divorce, Mom took Whisper with her, and Dad took Stealth. For Whisper, this change shook her whole world. Originally, Mom tried to soften the blow by talking about the positives. She would take Whisper with her in her car, and drive to their new house. “Look, see, we’ll be living on landed property out here. We have our own yard.” Both her daughters loved nature. They always talked to her about how they wished they lived on a farm near the countryside, or a house near the woods. A place where they could be around green fields and all manner of different plants. 

The two of them took walks around the neighbourhood. Big, manicured hand holding small hand tightly. The older elf trying her best to convince her daughter that things would be alright. Far away from the apartment where her Dad and older sister would reside.

It never did cheer Whisper up. Not because she hated the new house or because she did not want to leave their old rented apartment. But it was because she loved her older sister, and the idea that she would have to now live away from her made her grow more and more upset the more she thought about it.

The new furniture was scheduled to arrive at the house tomorrow in the late afternoon, so they had to get up early to make it there on time. They did pack some luggage, in two large purple carry ons. Both stuffed with enough clothes for two weeks, toiletries, and some other essential items. Such as a torch to act as a nightlight for Whisper and Mom’s work computer. It was the school holidays, and as such, there was no need for Whisper to worry about school items yet. And since they needed to head out early in order to get to the house on time, Mom made Whisper go to bed early so that she would be sufficiently well-rested.

Whisper was too busy crying that night to fall asleep. At that moment, she felt too lonely in her room, though she technically was not alone. No matter how much she pressed her favourite stuffed bunny against her, and how much she tossed and turned, she simply could not shake off the grief she felt. Finally, she could no longer take it. She pulled herself up from bed, and ran across the hallway into her older sister’s room. 

Since Stealth had received no orders to go to bed early, she had been busy lounging on her bed, reading a book, when suddenly her younger sister ran in. Her apple-green face streaked with tears, blue hair messy from tossing and turning. “Whisper, what happened?” She asked, setting aside her book onto her nightstand.

“I want to sleep in your room tonight,” she sniffled, hugging Mr Bun tighter. “Just one last night.”

Stealth nodded, and moved over to make some space for Whisper to lie down on. Once she lay her head on her pillow, still sniffling, Stealth placed a hand on her shoulder. An attempt to try and comfort her. When Whisper still continued to sniffle and sob, she reached over and got a pack of tissues. Then she pulled one out, and handed it to her. “Hey, it’s alright. We’ll still be able to see each other during Christmas and stuff.”

“B-but I want to see you everyday,” she sobbed. She sat up, and wrapped her arms around Stealth. “I don’t just want to see you for Christmas.”

Stealth patted her back gently. “I know, I don’t like this either. Really, I do wish we could just live together with either Mom or Dad, but…” She didn’t finish that thought. Because while she was searching for comforting words she could possibly say, an idea blossomed in her mind. “You know what? I just thought of a way we could talk to each other. Follow me.”

If Mom caught Whisper out of bed at that hour, they were positive that she would have yelled at her. Mom had been very easy to set off those past few years. Because of that, both girls learned two things. How to be quiet, and how to keep secrets. So fortunately, they were familiar with enough tricks to sneak out of Stealth’s bedroom quietly, into the office right next to her bedroom. It used to be her and Dad’s bedroom, but Dad had been sleeping in the guest room for months. (Well, it was originally a storeroom, but Mom added a futon and called it a guest bedroom one day, and Dad started sleeping there ever since.) Since the guest room was all the way on the other side of the house, they only had Mom to worry about.

Slowly, they made their way carefully around the house. In the dark, it was hard to see, so they had to rely on their memory and sense of touch to navigate. But fortunately, they were successful, and the only injury either of them got on the way to the office was when Stealth accidentally tapped her knee against the coffee table. 

They entered the office, and Stealth Elf booted up the big desktop computer. “I’m going to make you an email. They taught us how to set one up in school. It’s like sending letters, except through the internet, and you don’t have to wait super long to get them.”

She typed in the password, which she had memorised by heart due to all the school projects she did on that computer. And just like when she did those school projects, she was greeted with the computer’s wallpaper background. One which, for whatever reason, she had never bothered to change. Whenever Stealth saw it, she always wondered why Mom never changed it. She asked Mom once, and was ignored entirely.

It was an old picture, but a significant one; the four of them enjoying a family vacation at the beach. Whisper was only a baby then, so she had no real recollection of that day. But looking at it, all Stealth could feel was her stomach and her heart knotting up within her.

Mom was less scrawny, because that was back when she ate proper meals with them as a family. Back before they started fighting at every meal so she started staying later at the office to avoid the constant arguments. Whenever she got caught up working, she would often skip meals while at the office. Stealth overheard her parents arguing about her skipping meals too many times to count. Even though she had no clear idea as to what was going on between them, her instincts suspected that it meant nothing good.

Next to her, Dad had an arm around her. He wore a gold-coloured watch in the picture, but she had no idea what happened to it. If she recalled correctly, it was a wedding present given to him by his brother. And she recalled that he used to wear it all the time. But around, she would say, a couple years ago, he stopped wearing it. At least, she never saw what happened to it. Around that time, the whole family moved from their old house, a large house in a nice neighbourhood, into their current apartment too. As she grew older, she eventually put two and two together. 

That ended up being something she thought about a lot at night. Staring out her window at dozens of high-rise buildings, all of them blocking the inky black night sky from her view. When she was unable to sleep, she would overthink her family’s economic situation. Whether her Dad could even get a better job, whether she was causing her family to spend too much. Falling asleep guilty was a common experience for her.

Whisper had been a happy, carefree baby, cheerfully squealing with joy every time she built her a sandcastle or showed her a seashell she collected. In the photo, she looked so different from the girl who now stood beside her. But the most striking aspect of all, at least to her, was seeing herself in the photo. 

Back then, her blue hair was still short and she was still chubby with baby fat. In the photo, she wore a yellow sundress, one that matched Mom’s, because back then she still wore dresses. Her tanned apple-green face was covered in chocolate ice cream, the cone half-finished and dripping into her hand. The whole family had gotten ice cream that day. But the only reason why they even got those ice creams in the first place was because back then, she had wanted one. And when she didn’t get it at first she threw a temper tantrum. So they all got an ice cream each, and the next day Mom and Dad didn’t eat the shaved ices they were dying to try.

She got to work setting up Whisper an email account, fingers flying across the keyboard as fast as she could. But her thoughts still lingered on the beach. Back when they still had the money to afford beach vacations and ice cream priced too high, she threw a lot of tantrums. Mom and Dad gave her lots of attention. But things changed. Relatives died, jobs changed. To that day, she was not entirely sure of what exactly happened. But all she knew was that money became tighter, and she began seeing her parents less and less.

At first, it was something she resented because of how much she missed them doting on her. Still selfish and spoiled, she was never the sunniest kid in the after-school programmes they signed her up for. And she only truly started growing out of that mindset after a while. When Mom asked her if she could start picking up her little sister from the daycare across the street.

It was a quick walk. Give or take five minutes to cross the road, depending on traffic, then about five minutes back to the community centre her after-school programmes were stationed at. An easy enough task that a child could do it. All she needed to do was remember to look right, left, then right again. But doing that task for her Mom gave her something that previously, she really didn’t have much of. 

It gave her a responsibility to fulfil in the family.

That was not obvious at first. All she did was cross the street to pick up her baby sister, after all. And then they would spend some time together, talking and trying to entertain each other until either of them spotted the family’s car coming to pick them up. Initially, she thought that she would grow bored of that setup. What she didn’t count on, however, was her little sister being actually very interesting.

Before Mom asked her to do this, she used to go home, eat dinner, and then lock herself in her room to read or practice her martial arts exercises. Since she used to take classes at the community centre. She didn’t care to do anything with the rest of her family at all. After the task was assigned though, she started talking with Whisper more.

Some days, they talked about the simple things. What Whisper did in daycare, and what Stealth did at school. Other days, they talked about silly things, such as comics Stealth was reading or a new cartoon Whisper was obsessed with. And sometimes, they talked about serious matters. Such as the mean girl who wouldn’t stop pulling Whisper’s hair in class, and how the teacher didn’t care enough to stop her. Stealth told Mom about it, and then Mom spent the evening yelling at the teacher over the phone. The girl never bothered Whisper again. All those conversations eventually led to in-jokes. Jokes led to playtime. They threw tea parties, and pretended to be ninjas, and over time. After lots of playing together, lots of laughing with each other. Lots of arguing and a lot of worrying together once the cracks in their parents’ marriage became too obvious to ignore, Stealth and Whisper went from being sisters solely through blood, to becoming sisters through bond. 

She smiled at her sister, her best friend, her companion through this period of their lives. The computer screen continued to glow bright, stinging their eyes ever so slightly in the dark office. “Okay, so I’ve sent it all up for you now. You’re gonna want to listen closely now, because now I’m gonna show you how to actually use emails.”

And so she explained it to her. How she could write whatever she wanted to her, just like if she was writing a letter. She taught her how to send photos and videos, and how she could even do things like change fonts or give words strikethroughs. Most importantly, she gave her her email address, and showed her how she was supposed to send things to her. 

Then once all the lessons were done, she let Whisper play around with the program. She changed the font colours green and typed out silly things and pressed her hand on the keyboard, allowing the letters to smash together as she ran her hand over the keys. And once they played enough and felt better, they finally felt sleepy enough to go to bed. So Stealth turned off the computer, and they both snuck out of the office, back into Whisper’s room. Stealth tucked her in. A few hours later, Mom knocked on Whisper’s door. Waking up her groggy daughter, telling her to get dressed, because they were going to leave.

*****

Whisper and Mom moved out to the edges of the city, far away from the centre where Stealth and Dad remained. Previously, they had lived in an apartment, which was not a good place for nature-lovers to live in at all. They tried to grow a planter box and kept several potted plants, but that simply was not the same. Heading to the house then, it was the first time Whisper was looking at the place while not clouded by her negative emotions. Therefore, she saw the place through brand new eyes. Though it was a small house, the yard was very big. Seeing it all laid out in front of her, she began constructing potential plans for a garden. A small patch of flowers here, some vegetables over there...

But before they could even hope to grow any sort of garden, they needed to sort out all the furniture and properly settle in first. Mom had written out a plan on how they should move in. First on the list was cleaning the bathroom and kitchen. Together, they scrubbed and cleaned those places. Yellow rubber gloves covering their hands, suds and water covering the tile, getting scrubbed by sponges. Then the furniture arrived, so it was time to move some of the more important items in. They installed the fridge, and boxes containing their new furniture were moved in. But by the time it was all out of the truck, it was getting late, and both Whisper and Mom were getting hungry.

They ordered a pizza, and Mom opened a box containing some cushions (which used to belong to Grandma) so that they could lie down on them while they ate. But while they waited for their meal to come, Whisper suddenly felt the need to talk to her sister.

“Mom,” she said, “can I use your laptop?”

“What for?” Asked Mom.

“Stealth set up an email for me… a while ago. So that we could keep in touch with each other while we’re living apart,” she told her, sprawled out on the empty living room floor, a cushion underneath her belly. “I want to email her now.”

“Right now? Can this wait until tomorrow morning?” It had been a long day, and she was seated in an extremely comfortable position. With her legs folded, she roosted on the cushion like a bird in its nest. Getting up to walk all the way to fetch her laptop would be  _ such _ a hassle now.

“Please?” Begged Whisper, putting both hands together. 

Mom relented. “Alright, just wait a second…” she groaned as she stood up from the cushion, and stretched her legs when she stood up. She walked over to the carry-on luggages stacked away in the corner, and unzipped one of them opened. From there, she pulled out a leather bag, and took her laptop out of it. 

“You never told me about her setting up an email for you,” Mom commented.

Whisper shrugged. “You didn’t ask.”

So Mom entered the password, and placed the laptop in front of her. “You know how to access the website?” She asked.

A nod from Whisper. “Yeah. Stealth taught me how to do it.” She clicked on the internet browser, and entered the name of the website into the search bar using two fingers. Slowly, searching for every letter individually on the keyboard. It was already logged into Mom’s account, where she had over ninety-nine unanswered emails. So she asked her to log out, and she proceeded to log into her own.

From there, she clicked on the ‘compose email’ button in the far right corner, and clicked on a little button reading ‘saved email accounts’ to choose Stealth’s (she helped to save her account the night before). Then when she was done setting it all up, she was ready to compose it. In the end, this was what she wrote:

_ Dear Stealth, _

_ We made it to the new house! It is a small house, but the field outside is very big. I think I can plant all sorts of flowers out here. And hopefully some fruit and veggies too. Mom and I are all tired today now, since we spent the whole day cleaning. We ordered pizza, with pepperoni, mushroom, spinach, and extra cheese. That’s all I have to say now. I hope you and Dad are having a good day. _

_ Love, _

_ Whisper _

She played around with the fonts and the colour of the words for a while. Eventually settling on a curly cursive font and a deep forest green. Whisper re-read the email once, twice, three times. And with excitement mildly bubbling within her, she pressed ‘send’. 

There was a little bit of loading, but after a couple of seconds, a tiny message appeared at the corner of the screen. ‘Your message was successfully sent!’

“Okay, I sent it!” Said Whisper, handing the laptop back to Mom. Mom smiled, and took back the device. “Can I use it again tomorrow to check and see if she would reply?”

Mom smiled, and brushed a lock of cobalt blue hair out of her face. “Sure.”

Within another minute, the pizza had arrived. Since they managed to deliver the pizza within thirty minutes, that meant that Mom had to pay for the pizza. But they got it, and they sort of had a pizza party together, seated on the floor of their semi-empty living room. Whisper enjoyed her pizza, so she ate it up in big mouthfuls. She even found the vegetables tasty. They were actually often the best part of the meal to her.

Quietly, she sat there, chewing her pizza, thinking. She knew that a lot of kids didn’t like eating their vegetables, but she never understood why. Vegetables were delicious. At least, she liked the ones she grew up eating. During lunch at school, kids would always leave their vegetables when they ate, and she never understood it. It always seemed like such a waste of food to her. “Mom?”

“Hm?” She had her mouth full of food, and was busy chewing it. 

“Why do some kids hate eating their vegetables?” She asked. That question had been on her mind for a while, but she never asked anyone why prior to then.

Mom swallowed a bite of her pizza. “Well, it could be for a number of reasons. But usually, in my experience, it’s usually because the kid’s parents don’t know how to prepare vegetables that taste good to their kids. So now, their kids associate eating vegetables with bitterness.”

And that was a good enough answer for Whisper. “Oh,” she replied, then took another bite of her pizza. After that, she had no more questions to ask Mom. They finished their pizza, and then they both got ready for bed. They brushed their teeth together at the kitchen sink, changed into their pyjamas, and Mom pulled out the sleeping bags she had packed away in the carry ons for them to sleep in. And though the floor was hard and cold, at that point Whisper was so tired, she fell fast asleep the moment she shut her eyes.


	2. Life Outside The City

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oop, new chapter the next day.

Stealth replied to Whisper’s email immediately. The next morning, when Whisper woke up, she had sent her two whole pages talking about all the things that happened at the house after Mom and her left. Whisper begged Mom to read it out loud for her over their breakfast of granola bars the next day(Mom packed them for breakfast). Though Whisper was a fairly good reader - she could sit by herself in a corner and read quietly if asked to - but she always preferred someone reading out loud to her. 

“‘So after the movie marathon, Dad made dinner. We had chicken salad, and it was good, although I kind of wanted a double bacon cheeseburger with orange soda today. Just a craving.’” Mom rolled her eyes, an imperceptible smile on her lips. “I expect nothing less from your father.” Whisper knew that she joked about him being a health nut behind his back, but she always thought that it was just a part of who he was. He used to be a personal trainer at a gym before the gym closed down, and now he worked as a physical education teacher for a primary school. The pay was a lot lower than his old job, but it was a job.

“It was pretty good, and Dad even let me have a bit of cheese with it. And afterwards we washed the dishes together, and then I went back to my room to relax.” She was really detailed in her account of the day. Everything got mentioned, from the new book she was reading (the first entry in a graphic novel series about ninjas), to how many pushups she managed to do that afternoon (fifteen, a personal best), to a complete list of movies she watched with Dad (a cheesy spy flick, a martial arts movie, and an adaptation of a comic she liked). 

“‘It’s a shame you aren’t here, Whisper. It feels weird saying this, because you and Mom have been gone for less than a day, but… I miss you guys.’”

And then there was a moment of silence, because they both did miss her too. Though Mom didn’t miss him very much, Whisper did miss Dad too. They were all still allowed to visit each other, they all agreed on it in court and during a family meeting in the living room. But Mom moved away pretty far from the middle of the city, from the apartment where they used to live. It would take a long drive to go back, and if they took the train, it would take even longer. 

Visiting Stealth on a regular basis was plausible in theory. But in practice, that would mean sacrificing a lot of time travelling. Time that they needed for their own purposes. And while their car wasn’t a bad car (in that it was still mostly functional), the amount of money they would need to end up spending on fuel, tires, and the other miscellaneous things people spend on short road trips would add up, and Mom’s new job didn’t exactly pay her millions of dollars. 

“‘Anyways, overall today was a pretty fun day. I hope you guys settle into the new home well, but bye for now. Love, Stealth.’” The email ended there, and so Mom clicked it close. “Well then. I guess we really should get changed. We’ve got a busy day ahead of us.”

So that was what they did. But throughout the day, as Whisper accompanied Mom to complete all their errands, all she could think about was what she wanted to write to Stealth when she got back. She tried her best to pay attention to all the new sights and sounds just for that material. Fortunately for her, in a new place like that tiny town, there were many new things to take in.

For a big example, there was the wet market, which was a far cry from the supermarkets they had in the city. Unlike those supermarkets, the wet market was an open space. Different vendors sold all their various goods from separate stalls. One man sold vegetables, and next to him a lady sold fruit. In another section, a man sold fish next to the man selling pork, and next to him a woman sold chicken. It smelled heavily of fish and raw meat, and the air was filled with the chatter of other shoppers. From old women carrying plastic baskets, to families pushing around small metal trolleys full of plastic bags, to young couples browsing the fresh fruits and veggies, there was a diverse group of shoppers gathered there. 

Whisper hung closed to Mom, gripping her arm tightly as they wandered around the maze of stalls. Mom had her brows furrowed, clearly trying her best to fit in. She clutched onto the cloth shopping bags and shopping list they brought with them tightly. Whisper noticed how her eyes darted around, how her big, leaf-like ears twitched. She turned to face the other mothers talking to butchers and fishmongers. And finally, when she saw that a fishmonger was not talking to anyone, she walked up to him. Her posture straightened, and she swapped out the unsure look on her face for one which was more settled, more focused, kind of similar to the previous lady who had been at his stall.

“How much for this one?” She asked, pointing to a big filet of fish. Just like how the lady from before did it. 

The fishmonger, a tall four-armed yeti, picked it up with a gloved hand, and placed it on a weighing scale. He took a look at the reading, and then calculated the amount of money owed with his fingers. “Three dollars.”

“Right. I would like one of these then,” she said, a confident smile on her face.

“Do you want it deboned and descaled, ma’am?” He asked. “Only an extra dollar fifty for that.” 

“Really?” Back at the supermarket, all fish on sale came deboned. Whisper wondered if you got to see him debone the fish in front of you. It was something she always wondered about, how someone could remove the bones from a fish. “Mm, sure. Go ahead.”

The fish filet was placed on a wooden chopping board. Two of the yeti’s hands reached out for some broad knives he had hanging on some hooks, and then started sharpening them against each other. Metal against metal, it was a sharp but oddly satisfying noise for Whisper. Meanwhile, the other pair held the fish down carefully. Once the knives seemed sufficiently sharpened, he began his work. With wide, curious eyes, Whisper paid close attention to all that he did.

He started at the tail end of the filet. There, he gently gave it a small cut, and then continued moving his knife along the fish. The blade of the knife moved through the fish in an almost perfectly horizontal line, carving out the scaly skin and separating it from the flesh. Meanwhile, the other pair busied itself by keeping the cut flesh and skin apart, all to make sure that he didn’t leave too much fish on top of the skin. Once he carved out most of the skin, he wrapped a corner of it around his finger. And once it was all cut, he flipped the whole thing over, and pulled out the skin in one long, careful motion. 

The fishmonger then tossed the fish skin into a wastebasket tucked away in a particularly grimy corner. Whisper winced when she saw it, because it made her think of a lesson she learned in science once. Her class had to watch a video about how trash needed to be kept away from the food you ate, because if not it made it easy for germs to get onto the food, which made it easier for others to get sick. She was glad that at least he was making the effort to keep his fish as far away from that corner as possible. The sign above said that his store had been in operation since 1995. If it had been going on for this long, and no one had come to close it down yet, surely it had to be doing something right.

Soon her attention was brought back to the yeti, because he resumed his work on the fish. He ran his knife down the filet, then picked up a new tool. This time, it was tweezers. One for three of his hands. With one gloved hand being used to hold the filet, he used the other three to carefully pull out tiny fish bones. Against the pink flesh, they were plain white. And those contrasting colours made it easy for both him and Whisper to find the bones. 

Once all bones were pulled out, he placed the deboned, deskined filet onto a fresh, rectangular styrofoam plate. He then pulled out a sheet of cling wrap, and carefully covered up the fish with it, pulling the edged down under the styrofoam, packing away the whole thing properly. “All good, ma’am,” he said, handing the fish to her. “Would you like a plastic bag?”

“Uh, no thank you. We brought our own bag.” She placed the money on the counter, and then accepted the fish from the yeti. “But thank you.”

The rest of the trip was not as interesting; nothing else could have been quite as noteworthy to city girls as seeing a fish get descaled and deboned. Nevertheless, Whisper tried her best to describe the other sights and sounds as best as she could in her email. She talked about the different colours of the fruit and vegetables. The annoying ways children screamed and the ways their parents yelled at them. She talked about the sound of the butcher’s knife coming down onto blocks of wood as they cut meat up. She even complained about the noisy flies.

“It has been quite an interesting experience,” she typed. “And even though there are some things which I don’t look forward to facing again (like the flies and the screaming kids), I find it interesting to watch the grocers, the butchers, and especially the fishmongers do their jobs.

“Overall, it has been an eventful day. I had fun though, and I hope you had fun today too. Love, Whisper.”

And after reading through the email once to make sure she did not have any typos, she clicked ‘send’. And for the rest of the day, she continued helping Mom out with chores while she waited for the reply.

Stealth replied quickly to that one. And then Whisper replied quickly to her email again. It just continued like that, the girls taking it one day at a time, exchanging emails to each other, until they both eventually amassed a huge collection of emails they had both sent and received. By the end of the school holidays, it was all together enough to wallpaper the new room Whisper had been given.

Over the school holidays, their replies to each other were quick. Some days were more boring than others, but no matter how dull the day was, they always made sure to reply to each other within twenty-four hours. They talked to each other about all the things they used to talk about. What they wanted to do that day, their hopes and dreams for the future, even some of their fears and woes.

Towards the end of summer, Whisper was most worried about losing touch because they would both be busy with school.

“You’re gonna be going through your last year of middle school Stealth. And I’m gonna be starting a new school. I’m just worried that we’ll be so busy that we won’t have as much time for each other anymore.” Whisper typed it down quickly and sent it, eager to get a reply from Stealth. She was hoping that her sister could help to reassure her that things would be alright, she usually did.

After five minutes, she received a new email. As she had anticipated, it came from Stealth. And this was what the email said:

_ Whisper, _

_ I know it’s scary going into something new, but I think, at least for something like this, we’re just going to have to trust each other. _

_ I worry about you too, you know. I’m scared that you’d make some friends here and stop wanting to email me. I’m scared that the friends you make here would be a bad influence on you. I’m scared for both you and Mom, because I want both of you to be safe and happy. _

_ But I also need to trust that you two have each other’s backs. And that you guys would be alright by yourselves out there. So, I guess it’s gonna have to be something we both do now. I hope you enjoy your new school, and I hope this last year in middle school would be alright for me. I don’t know how bad or good high school would be, but I do hope it’s at least a little better than middle school. Most of all though, I hope we can trust each other. Things will get busier for us, because things always get busier once school is involved. But hopefully, even if our replies get slower, we’ll still at least try to be consistent. We just need to trust that we’re trying our best, and that we can take care of ourselves and we are trying our best. _

_ Lots of love, _

_ Stealth _

And her words made Whisper feel just a little bit better. Because what they were going to do was something she was familiar with, relatively speaking. In terms of trying new experiences, she had to do a lot of that over the school holidays. And she was not given very much time to process the new changes. It had all been a leap of faith, it had all involved trust in other people and other people trusting her. 

She took a deep breath, and reread the email once more. Right then and there, she knew that Stealth would not break that trust. This was her older sister she was talking about. She knew no one else as trustworthy as she was. There was no way she could ever forget to reply to an email.

And so the rest of the evening passed. Mom made sticky rice, sliced cucumbers, and karaage for dinner that evening, and then after they were done Whisper helped her to wash the plates. Then it was time to get ready for bed, and laying there, between her soft, springy mattress and her thick quilt, Whisper decided that if Stealth was going to be trustworthy, she better be just as trustworthy and loyal to her.

*****

Things were not bad. Things were not bad at all.

Sure, things definitely got busier. That was a given. Dedicating any amount of your life to schoolwork meant that a lot of free time would be lost. But though both the girls were good students, both maintaining good grades and being involved in many extracurricular activities, they still managed to make the time for each other. 

They couldn’t write to each other within twenty-four hours all the time, just like they could during the school holidays. But neither of the girls needed to wait longer than a week for a reply. If one of the girls sent an email Saturday evening, she could expect a reply next Saturday afternoon at the very latest. 

Since they were always so busy with school, they had a lot to write about. Anything went in those emails. From gossip about mean girls, to jokes about the canteen food, to ranking which Teachers they liked most and least. If there were any important updates regarding any of their parents, that went into the emails too. It was almost as if they were still living under the same roof, talking about life and school underneath blanket forts. Just like sisters did. Just like, in Whisper’s opinion, sisters should.

This carried on for years. Stealth went on to high school, and Whisper eventually headed on to middle school. “It’s weird and tough. I feel so awkward all the time now,” she confessed to Stealth. All Stealth had to tell her was that she should hang in there, and that things would only get better.

During school holidays, they talked more frequently, but had less to talk about. When school was in session, there was always a ton they had to share with each other. They frequently sent each other reports over the weekend about all the things they did, and those reports could be as long as ten pages every time. And eventually, as both girls grew older, their reports began including things which had nothing to do with school or family.

“I’m thinking about getting a part-time job over this school holiday,” said Stealth. “It’ll be a good experience, I think. And since I will be heading off to University soon, I think this work experience would be invaluable for me. Plus, it would help to solve the problem of my being constantly broke.” She frequently tried to convince Dad to give her more of an allowance, but he never saw why she needed so much money. 

Whisper got really excited about it. “Oh, you can finally get all the training equipment you’ve had your eyes on!” Stealth had tried to be thrifty with her allowance, simply so that she could get better quality training dummies. All her homemade ones simply weren’t up to her standard anymore. Not to mention, they tended to leave a mess when she trained with them. “Guess that means you don’t have to constantly vacuum up straw and sand after you train anymore.” 

She reached for a cup of orange juice on her bedside table, and took a sip. Then she continued typing her reply. “Anyways,” she continued, “I’ll be helping out with one last play for middle school before graduation.”

In middle school, Whisper was supposed to have an extracurricular activity. Unlike in elementary school, this was compulsory. During her first few weeks of school, she accompanied a new friend she made during orientation to a drama club audition, and much to her surprise, she got in. Her friend didn’t, and they gradually grew apart. But they undeniably had a hand in deciding how her fate went, and she would always be grateful for that.

She acted in the first couple of plays, but come her second year of middle school, she decided that acting really was not for her. She asked instead, to be a part of the backstage crew. And since they were always short on stagehands, the teachers in charge said that she could.

So that became her job. Dressed head to toe in black, she would run around in the shadows as quietly as she could, all to assist the actors swiftly and quickly.

She had a good run, doing backstage duties for about two years. But she was to graduate soon. The school had one last midsummer play for charity, which she would be helping out in, and once that was over she would move on to high school. Her replacements have been trained, the kids were all going to get a pizza party to say goodbye, all the proper plans and arrangements were made.

“It’s about a boy trying to solve a murder mystery. His dad died, and so now he had to accompany a bumbling private inspector to see who did it. The club helped to write it together, and we’re all very proud of it.”

She went on to give a few other miscellaneous life updates. School, tests, what high school she was going to attend, how Mom was doing with her new series of dates. All that good stuff. Then once she no longer had anything new to say, she signed out, reread the email again for typos, and then pressed ‘send’.

A couple days later, she got a reply from Stealth.

“A play? How exciting!” She typed. “Hey, you know, since it’s going to be happening in the middle of summer, maybe Dad and I could go on the train and finally get to see one of your school plays.”

Neither Stealth nor Dad have ever seen any of Whisper’s plays. Whisper sent them videos that Mom took, but it wasn’t quite the same as having them show up to see a play in person. The idea of the two of them showing up to see her final play sounded very appealing to Whisper, even if she wasn’t performing. But she considered her duties as a part of the backstage team important, the performers all worked hard and deserved a great audience, plus, it was for charity. More butts in seats meant that more cash would be going to the needy families in the community. 

She continued reading. “Of course, we would need to figure out some arrangements so that we could get the tickets. If possible, please email me back as soon as possible with some instructions as to how we could get the tickets, and we’ll carry on discussing it. It would also be great if you included stuff like what day it would be playing, where it would be showing, what the dress code is, all that stuff.”

Included in the email were more life updates which interested Whisper, but are not relevant to this particular story. So I did not include them. But that evening, as Whisper and Mom were having dinner (Mom bought back some takeout from a cheap Italian restaurant near her workplace. It was not the best food in the world or anything, but Whisper liked their risotto well enough.), Whisper brought up the email and how Stealth said that she wanted to go see the performance.

Mom swallowed down her spaghetti. “Hm, I suppose the easiest way we can do it is if you first buy the tickets for them here, and then later we give it to them and they give us the money in return.”

Whisper scooped up another spoonful of risotto, humming as she thought about her suggestion. “I guess that does sound like a plan. I’ll go tell it to Stealth.”

The next few emails were exchanged in one evening. The final exams were over for the two of them, and they both only had a couple more weeks of school left. School days where they did not need to do anything but sit back and watch movies teachers brought to class. Therefore, they had absolutely nothing else going on that evening. So the girls made their plans, discussing how and when they could give each other the tickets. “The next few days I’ve got a pretty jam-packed schedule,” admitted Stealth, “I’ve got a lot of activities planned with my friends. We’re going camping, watching movies, sleeping over at each other’s places. All that fun stuff.”

“That does sound pretty fun,” commented Whisper. “And after all that you begin work, don’t you?”

“That’s right.

More comparison of schedules was needed, but eventually, they figured something out. There was finally an empty space in all of their schedules. And so a plan was conceived. Mom and Whisper would head over to the old apartment after lunch via car, and there, they would hand over the tickets and stay for dinner. It was all similar to their plans to visit each other during the holidays, and Whisper took comfort in that fact. She knew roughly how it would all play out, and she grew increasingly excited for that day. Whenever she went for rehearsals, watching how her friends in the drama club practiced. Whenever she looked at the tickets, tickets which she stuck to a whiteboard nailed onto her wall using a ladybug-shaped magnet. It would simply hype her up.

But like all good stories, something had to come to make things just a little more difficult. And in this story, that spike in difficulty came in the form of two similar announcements.

“I have to cover someone at work tomorrow,” said Mom over dinner. “It was really last minute, and I tried my best to get out of it. But I really am all they have left. I’m sorry.”

Whisper nodded, absentmindedly using her fork to poke at her meatloaf. She had looked forward to visiting her sister too much to simply give up like that. So although she was silent, her head was trying its best to cook up a new scheme on the spot. “Maybe I could go by myself? I mean, we do need to give them the tickets.” It would take longer if she went by herself, because that would mean she would be travelling by train. It would take a few hours to get there, but she knew the way from the train station to the apartment. 

But then Mom shook her head. “I called them earlier to tell them, and apparently they had an emergency with the pipes, so your Dad’s busy with plumbers. And Stealth has a last-minute shift replacement too, so she’s not free for the afternoon either.”

“Oh…”

Mom probably caught onto her daughters disappointment, because she immediately tried to spin it into something more positive. “Aw, cheer up. At least some money went to charity, right? They’re just going to have to pay us back at a later date, that’s all.”

They both finished up dinner in silence. Then just like every other evening, Whisper helped with washing up, and then she went up into her room. Usually, when she was up in her room, she would be doing one out of three activities. During school days, she would be finishing up on any homework she wasn’t able to finish earlier. If not, she would lay in bed and read a book, or sometimes she would play a free game on the laptop her Mom gifted her for her thirteenth birthday. The same laptop she now used to email Stealth.

But that day, she did not do any of her usual three activities. That day, she had a new duty to fulfill, another activity to occupy her time with.

She sat on her bed, cross-legged. The glow of the laptop’s monitor shone on her face and body, stinging her eyes ever so slightly. On the browser, she had opened up her email, and was meticulously combing through dozens upon dozens of old messages her older sister sent her. If her memory served, she mentioned where she worked in at least one of them. If only Whisper could find the details. She recalled that she said something about during the beginning of the holidays…

She clicked on another one, and skimmed through it. No information there. Now into the next one. She was pretty sure she was getting warmer; there were still a few more emails sent near the start of the holidays to go through. Maybe it was this one...?

She read through it, and discovered that she was finally correct. There we go. She read the location once, twice, three times, and just to be safe, she keyed it into a notes app she had on her cellphone. ‘The Shooting Star Coffee Bar at Millennium Mall.’

And once that was done, she shut down her laptop, and plugged her phone into its charging port. Right before she tucked herself in for bed, she looked at the tickets stuck to the whiteboard one more time, and smiled. Tomorrow was going to be a big day for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Funny how you end up writing about your life experiences in fic, even if your life experiences tend to be different from what's presented in canon.


	3. Back To The City

The train station in the mid-afternoon was not too crowded. Most of the commuters who lived out in the country, but worked in the city, took the earliest train possible so that they could make it to work on time. Most of the people in the station at that hour were people who worked late shifts at the city, and were now heading home, and the employees working at the station. The lack of crowds made the station simultaneously seem huge, and very small. It was a side to the station that Whisper rarely saw. Prior to then, the only times she ever went to the station had a huge crowd thrown into the mix.

She scanned the map pinned up on the wall, figuring out how she could make it to Millenium Mall. Being raised in the city for only a small period of her early childhood, she did not remember much about it. However, she did remember that there was a station near the mall. Once she arrived, she could walk to the coffee shop from there. 

By her side, she had a small pouch hanging off of her shoulder. Within it was some money for the train fare (she packed a little extra from her piggy bank, just in case) as well as the tickets to the concert. In one hand, she held her cellphone, and her earplugs were attached to it.

She traced her finger through the map, figuring out her route. By her calculations, a ticket to that station should cost about… seven dollars. Grinning, she plugged her ears with her earplugs, and scrolled through her collection of music she had downloaded. Now, which album should she play…

She chose an old favourite album by her current favourite band, The Midnight Murder Foxes. A friend at school introduced them to her, and ever since, she was hooked. They were originally going to be like any other generic girl group, but somewhere along the way, someone decided that they would start singing death metal. She loved their aesthetic, the lead singer’s voice,and the themes they wrote about all resonated with her. By far, their best album had to be their first one.

She went to the automatic ticket dispenser, and fished out seven dollars from her bag. On the touchscreen, she selected the destination which she wanted to arrive at, and then inserted her cash into the little slot intended for it. Some whirring, beeping, and a plastic ticket was produced. Whisper plucked it out, and then sauntered up to the gates.

This would be the first time she ever went anywhere far away by herself. On other trips on the train, Mom had always accompanied her. At the moment, her knees shook a little, and her eyes were wide open for any signs of danger. She had texted Mom before she left the house, saying that she would be ‘out’. But the radio said that there was a traffic jam on the highway, and Mom wasn’t the type to check her phone while driving. Ever. So it would be a while before she found out where she was. And when she did, chances are she would already be on the train.

She checked the time again. Five more minutes until it arrives. The first track of the album ended, leading into the second one, the biggest hit from that particular album.

Whisper thought back on what Mom said last night. “ _ At least some money went to charity, right? They’re just going to have to pay us back at a later date, that’s all.”  _ Technically, she was not wrong. The point of the midsummer concert was to raise money for needy families. They paid the money, and so the concert and its tickets had already served their purpose. This trip, by all accounts, really was not necessary.

And that was important. It was very important for the community. But what was important to Whisper, and she was probably the only one who saw what a pressing issue it was, was that her family never saw a complete live performance in the past. 

She wanted that. Whisper wanted Dad and Stealth to come down and watch the play. Every performance in the past, she would watch as kids run back to their families, who would bring them flowers and film them on camcorders. Siblings would tease them for anything embarrassing they might have done on stage, but ultimately thought that they did a good job. And whenever she saw that, she knew, deep down, that she greatly wanted that too. It was a dream of hers, to have them finally get to see the hard work of the drama club play out in front of them. If they did not have the tickets, they couldn’t do that.

So it might be a reckless decision, one that she probably did not think through thoroughly. But she wanted them to get down to the edges of the city, and get themselves seated comfortably in - she checked the seat numbers printed on the tickets - row B, and for them to enjoy themselves watching the show. And she wanted to end the performance with her running to greet them. She wanted to ask them what they thought of it. And she wanted to hear their thoughts as the family went out for a late night snack together. 

The train arrived at the station with a roar, all sleek in its modern bullet-train design. From above, the announcer’s voice told all passengers to stay safe, and informed them of where the train would be heading next. Once the last of the alighting passengers stepped out of the doors, Whisper walked in. 

She was hit with a blast of air-conditioning. It made goosebumps form on her skin, and she wished she brought a sweater. But never mind that. She could bear with a little bit of cold, it was already too late to turn back now anyways.

Inside the train, there was notably a lack of passengers. In the past, when she got on it, the seats would all be filled with people, and she would be left with no other option but to stand. And she would stand for a long time, until finally an empty seat would reveal itself, and she would quickly claim it before anyone else could. (Unless someone else needed it more than her, of course. She wasn’t raised in a barn, she would happily give her seat up.) But because it wasn’t crowded, there were plenty of plastic blue seats left open for her to choose from. So she decided to sit on the one right in the middle. 

The second song ended, the third song began. That one was honestly her favourite song on the album. She listened to it way too many times to count, and she could recite it all by heart.

After a while, the train’s door started to close. The intercom speaker once again reminded all passengers where the train was heading, and soon after, it took off. Whisper turned around, so that she got a look at what was outside via the big window behind her. Outside, the scenery started out mostly consisting of all sorts of different plant life. Trees, bushes, vines, with the occasional building thrown into the mix. Then as the train carried on moving, it gradually changed into scenery with more and more buildings, and less and less plant life. 

The train arrived at the next station, and more people got on. Song three ended, and song four began.

Someone sat beside Whisper. A tall gnorc, carrying a touchscreen tablet. Silently, she took a sneaky peek over his shoulder to see what he was doing. She expected that he would be doing something like reading the news, since that was a sensible thing that adults should do.

But when she peered over to look at his screen, the first thing she noticed was colour. Lots of bright colours. She was greeted with a restaurant, with tons of tiny animated characters coming into the restaurant, eating a variety of foods on the multicoloured tables, and then leaving with happy faces. The gnorc busied himself by playing with the little stoves behind the counters carrying food. He would press on the counters, then select a dish to prepare. 

Whisper was familiar with the game, a couple of her friends at school played it for a while, but they later got bored of managing their restaurants. According to them, it was a very repetitive game. You cooked food, then came back after a period of time to collect the food before it could go bad. You needed to have counters to put the finished food on, and then the little cartoon people come in, eat the food, and give you in-game money. You use that money to buy new stoves, decorate your restaurant, and to cook more food for the customers. Every now and then, the team releases a new stove. You cook new dishes. They release new decorations. You buy those new decorations. Rinse, lather, repeat.

She always thought of it as a game that bored people played because they had nothing better to do. Yet, the gnorc seemed engrossed in his game. It was… actually really cool seeing him play it with a smile on his face. But then she realised that she was technically spying on someone, so she turned to look the other way. The train began moving around that time too, so she focused her attention back to the window behind her.

They passed through rows and rows of shophouses. Red-bricked buildings where shops took up the first floor, and the second floor could be used for any other purpose. Whisper knew kids at school who took music classes on the second floor of the hair salon, because the main hair stylist’s daughter taught violin, piano and singing. Once the dozens of red-bricked buildings passed, next came a wall. And immediately after the wall, painted a bleached white, the train entered a tunnel.

The lights in the train flickered, but continued shining bright. However, the roar of the train became louder. Amplified by the closed walls of the tunnel, the sound of the train moving, the rushing of the wind, grew so loud that it drowned out the music playing from Whisper’s phone. Eventually, it irritated her too much, so she took out her earplugs.

Whisper did not have any games downloaded onto her phone. She used to have a couple, but ultimately, she needed to delete them. They were simply becoming too much of a time sponge. At the time, it seemed like the right thing to do, and she was quite proud of herself for how mature she was being. But now here she was, on a trip which would last several hours. A good chunk of the scenery from this point on would either be tunnel or city landscapes, which she never found particularly fun to look at, and now she had no music either. 

Sighing, she figured that that would mean looking for alternative means of entertaining herself.

People watching sounded like a good place to begin. In the past, she never really watched how people interacted on the train. When she travelled with Mom, she usually brought with her more things to entertain herself with. Since she really had nothing else to do other than shake her legs and stare into space, she figured it was worth a shot. See what others did on the train. If a particularly interesting thought entered her brain, then she could let her mind wander from there. Daydreaming; a perfectly good way to entertain yourself.

She did a quick scan of her surroundings. It was still just a little earlier than lunch hour. Since they were heading into the city, she had no doubt that there would be more people coming in to fill the train up soon. Office workers who want to go elsewhere for lunch, as well as shift workers whose shifts were either ending, or were on their way to work.

Wait…  _ lunch _ . Oh, she forgot about  _ lunch _ . She had been so excited about going into the city and embarking on this adventure to get there, that she forgot to consider what she could even eat for  _ lunch _ .

Now what?

She sucked in a deep breath, and considered her options. Most things in the city were pretty expensive, but all she needed was five dollars for a burger at some fast food joint. Except… it’s been ages since she’d been to a shopping centre in a mall. She knew that fast food joints were still a thing in  _ some _ malls, but they weren’t a thing in  _ all _ malls. And there was still that fear of being lost. 

The train made its next stop, and there was an increase in people coming into the train this time compared to the last stop.

Risk a meal and potentially get lost? Or stay according to the plan? She looked at the tickets inside her little pouch again. Was it worth it?

She stayed on her seat, and sighed. She could bear a little hunger. There was something greater than a cheap burger she had her eyes set on.

The train left, the voice over the intercom announcing the next station they were headed towards.

Whisper sighed, and refocused her thoughts. She really should try to keep her mind off of food for the time being. Time to see what sort of interesting things people got up to on the train. 

At least, she hoped that someone would do something interesting. Because as far as she could see, all anyone was doing was looking at their devices. Even young kids, even the elderly. She knew that in the past, all people did on trains was read books and newspapers, and so no one did anything particularly interesting in the days before technology like smart devices either. But that didn’t make her lack of immediate success at people watching any less unfruitful.

She looked around, more carefully this time. And right in the corner, there was a teenage girl, a pink faun, reading a book. She had a pair of purple headphones covering her ears, so Whisper could only assume that she was also listening to music, but there she was, reading a novel about - she leaned a little to get a closer look - romance, so it seemed. Based on the way the people on the cover posed, as if they were about to kiss.

The faun looked like she was enjoying herself, based on the small smile on her face. She was hiding her grin with her hand, but Whisper didn’t understand why. If she was enjoying herself, why should she hide it?

After looking around once, twice, three times, the only other notable thing that happened was someone sneezing. So once the train stopped again, and new passengers came in, Whisper knew that she needed to move elsewhere if she wanted to find a new space worth people-watching in.

An elderly man entered the car she was in, and she stood up to offer her seat to him. Gratefully, he smiled at her, and she smiled back politely. Then she turned to head into the next car. The train doors closed, a sign that they were about to start moving again, so she reached out to grab a pole, and held on tightly. Under her, her legs nearly gave way as the train jerked, a shaky start before they could move smoothly again.

The next car was fairly similar to the last one. Mostly people looking at their smart devices. Nothing much to see. Though unlike the previous car, there were a few more who were not looking down at screens. So Whisper walked up a little closer, slowly so that she could maintain her balance, and tried to see what they were up to.

In a corner seat, there was a fox woman with her kit in a trolley. As she needed to care for her child, the woman’s devices were all probably stored away in the giant purse on her lap. Instead, she occupied herself with playing peek-a-boo. Every time she revealed herself, her child would clap and squee. It was all very cute, and it was mildly interesting.

In the opposite corner, someone was on his tablet too. But notably, he was using it for a different purpose than what everyone was probably using their tablets. At least in a way which was obvious to someone people-watching. He was a werewolf with a stylus in his paw, and on his tablet screen, which was half-visible to the surrounding world, light pencil sketches were marked out on a piece of plain paper. Whisper squinted, trying to guess what he was drawing. Wild guesses sprouted from her mind, and none of them seemed right to her.

He then switched from using a pencil-like tool, and began tracing around his markings using a dark black ink pen-like tool. And that was when she realised that the artist was drawing the mother and baby right in front of him.

Amazingly, even though it was just a simple sketch, she could practically see the life in both the mother and the baby flow onto the screen. She had tried drawing a couple of times, and none of her attempts turned out great. All she ever did now was doodle in the margins of her textbooks. If she had a talent like that, she would certainly take full advantage of that by drawing anything and everything she found even remotely interesting.

Though the most interesting thing was actually the way the artist moved. His arm just  _ flowed _ , as if there was only a rhythm he could hear playing, and he was moving according to how it played. The sheer look of focus and engrossment on his face, how nothing else appeared to matter for him other than what was in front of him, and what art he was producing. It all just  _ fascinated _ Whisper, to a greater extent than the drawing itself, even.

He got off at the next stop, so she took that as her cue to go elsewhere to find other interesting things to look at. She walked up ahead a little more, eager to see what else lay beyond. Still, there were many on their devices, and among them was a tiger who yawned. He did not cover up his mouth, and ended up revealing his rows of pearly, sharp teeth to all on the train. It caught Whisper’s attention for a while. Just for the shortest few seconds.

A few more steps, and she now faced a small area without seats. There, a dwarf in a wheelchair sat. He too, was on his phone, but that was not what caught her eye. Instead, what she found most interesting were two boys in the middle. They each held the central pole tightly, as one should if they do not wish to be thrown around by a moving train.

But that was not the most interesting part. Rather, it was the fact that they seemed to be working out while on the train.

The two boys - one an elf and the other a gremlin - appeared to be doing the squats. They bended their knees and went down in tandem. Counting together, if their mouth movements were anything to go by. It made Whisper chuckle a little. But though it was a pretty silly thing to do, at least in her opinion, she had to admit that it was also a cute sight to behold.

Every ten squats or so, they would look to each other and smile. Occasionally one would flash a thumbs up at the other. She guessed that they had to be good friends, based on those little interactions. And they somehow managed to capture her attention for the next few stops. Because she watched them all the while with a small smile on her face. Then they got off at a stop, she realised that she had just been standing there for the past few stops, and she walked off to find something else to watch.

*****

Finally, finally, after a few hours, she arrived at her stop. She ran off, checked out of the gate, and once she did, a wave of hunger pangs crashed over her again. On the train, she had done a great job distracting herself from her physical state. But it was the middle of the afternoon now. Lunch had come and gone, and she was now starving.

Still she needed to persist. To push herself, she made a mental promise to herself. If she could find the coffee house, and give the tickets to Stealth, she would buy herself a burger with the remaining money she had brought along. But now, she needed to get herself to a directory.

She found one, after wandering around in a bit of a confused haze. After a quick read through, she learned that the coffee place she was looking for was on the second floor. So she got onto the elevator, and stood on anticipatory excitement. Foot tapping, fingers drumming on the handrail.

Once she arrived, she headed out. Eyes wide open, on the search for a sign reading ‘Shooting Star Coffee Bar’. And with three paces, there it was. Right in front of her eyes, all big and neon, in a jagged, electric font.

The general colour scheme was white and purple, from the outside. But when Whisper stepped in, that was when she saw the true extent of the personality of the place. The counter was long, like a real bar was. And both it and the tabletops were made of some sort of marble material which sparkled like stardust under the dim light. The carpet could have easily belonged to some planetarium gift shop. Equal parts a pretty mixture of colour and star shapes, and tacky as anything. The chairs were all black, and designed as if they were props in a science fiction film. In one corner, there was an eclectic collection of old arcade games. And every patron of the place either looked like they haven’t slept in days, or they dressed up specifically to go there.

It was like a cross between a coffee shop and a themed night club. 

She sniffed the air, and her stomach growled. The air was thick with the smell of not only coffee, but chocolate and caramel and all the different pastries they had showing in the display case over there. All those aromas together made her mouth water. What she would give for a tart now, and maybe some hot chocolate to complement! But no. She needed to focus. Get the tickets to Stealth first, then worry about food. Just this one last step left to go.

Up ahead, she saw her. Wearing a brown tank top, her blue hair braided up neatly. She was busy brewing something in a black ceramic cup, and when she turned around to give it to the customer, that was when she noticed her. Whisper smiled and walked up to her, hand in the pouch. 

“Milkyway Ripple?” Went Stealth, eyes still fixed on her little sister. A griffon flew up to her, and took the cup with a nod to show thanks. Once he got his drink, Stealth turned to a coworker beside her, a purple dragon. “Spyro, cover me. I’ve got to talk to someone.”

Whisper fished the tickets out, and was about to present them to her with a grin. When Stealth clamped both her hand down onto her shoulders, and gave her a small shake. “Whisper, what are you doing here?”

“I- uh…” Her smile faded away. Stealth looked legitimately surprised to see her there, and concerned. Very concerned. “I took the train to come and give you your tickets. Since we couldn’t meet up at your house today and all.”

Stealth sighed, then brushed a lock of Whisper’s hair, tucking it behind her big, elven ear. “You know,” she began, “we could have just met up at the concert place. And you could have given me and Dad our tickets then.”

Whisper blinked. “Oh. Right.” In her excitement to go on this great adventure, she ended up overlooking a very obvious solution. Oops.

“Does Mom know you’re here?” Asked Stealth. Whisper nodded, feeling no need to elaborate further. And so Stealth took in a deep breath, and shook her head. Though at least while she shook her head, she smiled.

“Well, it’s good to see you again,” she said. “Have you eaten anything? That must have been quite a long train ride.”

She shook her head no. “Didn’t even have lunch,” she admitted bashfully.

“Oh,” Stealth bit her lip, and looked up at Spyro. The two teenagers exchanged a look, then Stealth turned to face her sister again. “Tell you what? How about I get you a pastry and a coffee? I’m paying.”

“No, no. That won’t be necessary, I brought my own money for-”

“I insist,” said Stealth, a seriousness in her pale eyes. “You’ve come all the way here just for me, I really should treat you to something.”

There was a tenderness in Stealth’s voice when she said that. A tenderness that Whisper gravely missed. “I want a chocolate croissant,” she decided. “And you can give me whatever coffee you want. Surprise me with it.”

Stealth resumed her shift, and Whisper went off to find a seat. She took a table in the corner near the arcade machines, then dug out her phone from her bag. Right there in her notifications, sent at least a couple of hours ago, was Mom. It turned out that Whisper had been so engrossed in people watching, that she had forgotten to check her messages. Oops.

She read them all. Scanned them really. Mom was so frantic and worried for her well-being. She typed her apology. “Sorry Mom. I’m at the coffee shop Stealth is working at now. All’s fine on this end.”

Then she placed her phone back into the pouch. Hopefully Mom won’t be too mad at her when she got home today. From the counter, Stealth called out her name, so she walked up to collect her food and drink. Finally, she couldn’t wait to tuck in.

It would be her first time trying coffee. Prior to then, she never really felt the need to try it. But Stealth told her that it was a secret, special recipe she and Spyro came up with, so she figured it had to be good. Stealth and her shared common tastes in a lot of things. Maybe they would share a taste for similar types of coffee.

But first, she ate the croissant. Well, more like gobbled it down. Taking it in with big bites, practically cramming its flakey, buttery goodness down her mouth. She couldn’t stop, it’d been too long since she had a bite to eat, and she just kept horking it down until she finished it all. With a sigh, she then turned to the coffee. The light brown mixture in the black ceramic cup. She wrapped her hand around the handle, brought it to her lips, and poured it down her mouth.

It was bitter. Creamy. With just the slightest hint of… coconut milk? She was not quite sure. Certainly, it was an unusual flavour, but that didn’t make it  _ bad _ . So she took another sip. And then another. And another. By the time she finished half of the cup, she decided that it was a bitter, odd drink. But she kept on wanting to finish it. Because even though, at that period of time, it was a little too bitter for her, she had the feeling that someday that same flavour would grow on her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was based on all the trips I took on the subway while going to school. You can see some interesting stuff on there.
> 
> Also, am I weird for wanting to include themes and other literary devices into my fanfiction? Because I tried to incorporate themes into this story.

**Author's Note:**

> I dunno. This AU is so crack, it was the first sign to me that I should start writing my own original stories.


End file.
